ATI 3850 AGP card causing Disk Thrashing and sluggish performance?

[DarkFudge2000]

Sorry folks to repost this from the General Forum but perhaps this could be a result of the video card I just installed...so Im just trying to get ideas here...thanks

Folks, I have an older P4 2.6ghz OC'd to 3.1Ghz PC and I just recently replaced my GeForce 4 6800GS card with a newer ATI 3850 AGP card and I noticed that the performance seemed a little wierd....I am getting Disk Thrashing and poor framerates in games such as Battlefield 2 and NBA 2K9 and such.

I want to troubleshoot and isolate the problem because I have heard that the ATI 3850 cards are prone to some performance issues but I really think it could lie within the confines of an improperly prepped system so, I am asking you all what steps should I start looking at first?....here is my system:

P4 2.6 OC to 3.1ghz
ASUS P4C800 Deluxe Motherboard
Antec Smart Power Supply 500W
1 GB Buffalo 3700 RAM
1 Sound Blaster Audigy
Sapphire ATI 3850 AGP 512 Video card (latest Catalyst drivers)
2 Hard drives ( 1 Sata Maxtor and 1 Western Digital Ultra IDE)
1 CD ROM writable Liteon Drive
1 DVD Writeable Liteon Drive
3 internal case fans

Windows XP SP2

My first couple of guesses ....

-Is Power supply adequate?...How do I test?...is there a software tool to test?

-Are there old driver conflicts left behind from RivaTuner 2.0 and NVidia driver uninstalls?...How can I completely check and remove?

-Does my system have enough RAM?...should I add another 1GB or thats not gonna help anything?

-What kind of tweaks and/or ConfigSYS options can I turn off and on for better performance?....I see alot of resources running but this was like this with the Geforce 6800GS and I didnt have the Disk Thrashing problems like I have now in games

What do you think guys?

DO I need to provide more info?

thanks for your help in advance!

 

[Lonyo]

My first port of call would be RAM.
PSU wouldn't even be a consideration.
Drivercleaner (IIRC) should help you eliminate any remnants of older drivers.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
My first port of call would be RAM.
PSU wouldn't even be a consideration.
Drivercleaner (IIRC) should help you eliminate any remnants of older drivers.

I'd agree, more RAM would help for sure.

To the OP, another thing you didn't mention or clarify was whether you changed the settings in those games at all. Yes your GPU is capable of handling higher settings like texture or detail, levels of AA and resolutions but this also puts stress on the rest of your system. If I had to guess you cranked up in-game settings and the AGP bus, low system RAM and your HDDs are paying the price.

 

[DarkFudge2000]

how can I tell if my MB is running AGP at 8x?


And Should I add another 1GB to my system for a total of 2GB?....will that increase performance? Im wondering if there is a ceiling for RAM and performance gains on this old system?

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: DarkFudge2000
how can I tell if my MB is running AGP at 8x?


And Should I add another 1GB to my system for a total of 2GB?....will that increase performance? Im wondering if there is a ceiling for RAM and performance gains on this old system?

GPU-Z to check AGP bus and other specs.

The additional 1GB should certainly yield noticeable improvements on that machine; it did even when those parts were the high-end especially with the BF titles which were notorious RAM hogs. I'd say get 3GB total if DDR weren't so much more expensive than DDR2, but you may be able to find some cheap prices over in FS/FT.